November Read-Alouds! 

Read about our lesson plans, text dependent questions, graphic organizers, and craft for each November read-aloud. 

This month we chose a seasonal title, two Thanksgiving themed stories, an old favorite, and two books for Election Day for our November Read Alouds. We selected stories that were complex enough that they would lend themselves to span across 3-4 days. We plan to dive deep and cover many Common Core Literature Standards while also giving ourselves time to respond to the text with writing and art. We wrote rigorous text dependent questions where students use evidence from the text to deepen their understanding of the stories.  We created graphic organizers and writing in response to text activities to incorporate writing standards. We also incorporated an art piece to compliment each read-aloud and designed bulletin board headings to display some of the work.

The lesson plans for each book will guide us through 3 days of close reading. Each day we will read the text for a different purpose and students will complete a different activity.

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano illustrated by Lee Harper

We can’t let November pass without reading this classic story Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano. This delightful tale is sure to make your students giggle as Turkey worries that he will be served as the main dish at Thanksgiving dinner.  He tries various disguises so the farmer won’t be able to find him when Thanksgiving arrives. In the Turkey Trouble Lesson Plans, students address key ideas and details, students will sequence the events of the story. “Turkey Trouble” is filled with clever word-play, which is perfect for teaching words and phrases from the craft and structure standards. Students will determine the meaning of silly phrases from the story and identify whether they appeal to their feelings or senses.  As a culminating activity, students will disguise their own turkeys and write an option piece on why their costume is a better disguise.

Duck for Turkey Day by Jacqueline Jules

Duck for Turkey day is one of our newest read alouds. It is the cutes story about Thanksgiving. It is about a Vietnamese American family having duck for Thanksgiving dinner. The little girl learns the Thanksgiving dinner of her classmates range from roast beef to lamb to enchiladas on Monday after break. It makes them all happy to learn they all ate different things for Thanksgiving, but they all had something in common- family! Grab our Duck for Turkey Day Lesson plans here. 

Duck for President and My Teacher for President by Kay Winters and Denise Brunkus 

We paired Duck for President and Teacher for President to teach children about Election Day.  Duck for President is an adorable story that teaches young students about the election process through Duck’s political journey. Duck is tired of doing his chores on the farm and climbs his way to the top until he is elected as President of the United States. Running the country turns out to be more work and stress than he planned on so Duck returns back to the farm to write his autobiography.

In My Teacher for President, Oliver, believes his teacher has the qualities to run for President. He writes a letter to Channel 39, listing all the reasons his teacher would be a perfect candidate.

We felt students will need some background knowledge about politicians and the election process to better comprehend and respond to these two stories.  We wrote a short text entitled “What Does a Politician Do?” to front load these close reads.  Much of the story is told through the illustrations in both of these books.  This provides an opportunity for students to use illustrations and details to describe the events.  Students will also learn about cause and effect and complete a graphic organizer about Duck and his response to different events in the story.  Students will use information from both stories to brainstorm and write about things they would change if they were elected class president. Check out our Elections Learning Quest for another great lesson plan about Election Day. 

In November by Cynthia Rylant illustrated by Jill Kastner

In November read aloud lessons captures special activities that occur in the month of November through gorgeous oil paintings and poetic language. This story encourages children to explore their senses and learn to visualize through detailed illustrations and beautiful similes and metaphors. We plan to have students listen the first time without looking at the illustrations. We will ask them to visualize scenes and paint images in their minds, then draw their visualizations. We will discuss adjectives as students use colorful words and adjectives to write about their own November scene.

The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens illustrated by Susan Stevens Crummel

The Great Fuzz Frenzy read aloud is a for your classroom!  When a strange, fuzzy object (tennis ball) falls into the prairie dog burrow, they discover they can decorate themselves with the fuzz.  The prairie dogs exhaust themselves, swirling and twirling. Their creative frenzy turns in to greed when the fuzz finally runs out. Their arguing threatens to tear the community apart until they come together to rescue the town bully, Big Bark, who is kidnapped by an eagle.  This delightful story is great for teaching characterization.  It is a complex text with illustrations that are perfect for diving deeper into analyzing characters.  Students will determine how the tennis ball causes the prairie dogs to feel differently at various points in the story.  They will analyze two main characters by creating character maps.  As a culminating activity, they will write about a character from the story and create a prairie dog decorated with green fuzz.

Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson

This Pumpkin Circle Read Aloud is the final book in our November Read Aloud pack. It is a fun way to teach the life cycle of a pumpkin through literature. Your students will love the sequencing activities and writing about the pumpkin life cycle. 

You can purchase all of these read-alouds individually by clicking on the images or all together in our November read-aloud Curriculum bundle.

We are just getting started…here are more K-1 read-alouds for November!

More favorites:

• Snow, snow we all love snow – especially our Kindergartners – here’s a fun snowy day read aloud.
• Teach the importance of individual creativity with our Ish Interactive Read Aloud.